Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Hello ladies. I know it's been a while since I posted any swatches or reviews. Sorry about that. I've been a bit down lately and allergy/pollen season has knocked me on my ass this year. Literally right now as I'm on day 2.5 of a sinus congestion migraine. I do not recommend this condition.Today I have swatches and reviews of the entire Femme de Cirque collection from OPI for you. Femme de Cirque is the newest Soft Shades release. It consists of 4 polishes, 2 almost white cremes, 1 SHEER pink, and a glitter top coat. For all of these polishes I used OPI Natural Nail Base and Diamond Dry Top Coat. For the first three I'm showing you I used 3 coats of polish on my pinkie, middle finger, and thumb, but 4 coats on my ring and index fingers. Formula was good and application smooth for these. Dry time was a little slower than normal I found.

In the Spot-Light Pink:

This is the sheer pink. And I really mean SHEER.

I felt like I had gel nails while wearing this polish. Not in a bad way, more in a these don't look like my nails kind of way. Too smooth and perfect almost.

So Many Clowns....So Little Time:

The first of the two whitish cremes is slightly more brown toned. Still slightly on the sheer side, but less so than In the Spot-Light Pink.

If you look closely, even after 4 coats there is still VNL, visible nail line. And the polish almost matches my skin tone, yes I'm really that pale.

Step Right Up:

The other white creme. Step Right Up is more pink toned and more opaque.

As you can see, there is almost no VNL left with this one. But again it almost matches my skin tone, maybe more so than So Many Clowns.

While these are not my normal type of colors, I can say they felt rather feminine and flirty. But not something I would wear very often. I do think they would work well for a French manicure however.

Now the 4th polish in this collection, I Juggle...Men, is more me. It's a shimmery top coat that reflects a few different colors.

I tried this over Step Right Up first. It looked nice in person, but I could not get a photograph that actually showed the shimmer. So I pulled a few different colors to show you. I used 2 coats of I Juggle...Men over each of these colors with OPI Natural Nail Base and no top coat.

Please click to enlarge this so you can see the different colors in the shimmer. In case you're wondering what the base colors are my pinkie is Sephora Pure Plum, Ring finger is WnW Craze Nocturnal-a deep navy, Middle finger WnW Wild Shine Black Creme, my go to black, and Index finger WnW Wild Shine Red Red.

By far, I Juggle...Men is my favorite polish from this collection. I can see myself using this over many different polishes.

My final verdict on these: Grab I Juggle...Men to jazz up some cremes and create some fun layered looks. But the other three I would give a pass unless you need some new French mani polishes.

Disclaimer: The product(s) in this post were sent to me by the company for consideration.